EP 213 | Talkin' OOPSY w/ Jordan Rosenblum - Launch Angle

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
6 mph. Adjusting swing 12°.
Proceed with launch angle. Welcome into the Launch Angle
pod. I'm Rob.
You can't show you to find me onX at Deadpool hitter.
I'll be. We're going to Rob Silver very

(00:20):
shortly and we'll be having a special guest, Mr. Jordan
Rosenbloom, the creator of the Oopsie Projection system.
You catch Jordan on fan graft onscout, the stat line and
prospects live. He does a lot of work across the
fantasy industry and very short player and very good analyst.
We'll be getting into the oopsieprojection system with him very
shortly. Just a quick little announcement

(00:40):
for the from the launch angle side.
We'll be going forward without Jeff Zimmerman, who's just been
so great for us and I've been love working with Jeff in these
past couple years and just time is ready for time is set for
Jeff to move on and he's set to do other things, special things
in this fantasy world. So we wish him well and we'll be

(01:02):
going at it with just either me and Rob or we'll have a guest on
from time to time as well. So we'll be making it work going
forward, but just want to give everyone a heads up on that.
So without any other for the commentary, we'll get right into
the episode. Here's the catch.

(01:23):
All right, welcome into the longjangle pod.
I'm Rob D I'm here with Rob Silver.
What's up, Rob? What's going on?
How you doing bud? I'm doing fantastic.
I'm doing splendid. It's my word of the.
Yeah, that's my word of the. Day blended isn't isn't Splendid
like a fake sugar you can put into drinks like the full of
chemicals. You live such a pure dietary

(01:44):
life, Rob, I'm surprised you useSplendid in your iced coffee.
Yeah, that's that's, I think that's splendor.
Splendor. No, I'm I'm pretty sure that's
how they got the name right. It's just like, hey.
I would, I would, I would. The marketing geniuses, they
paid, they paid 10 million bucksto some marketing firm.
What? What should we name our chemical
fake sugar? And they came up with Splenda.

(02:05):
Yeah, it's disgusting. I used it once in my life and I
just like got rid of that. Coffee you felt you felt tumors
literally appearing in your bodyas you were drinking your your
iced coffee. Yeah, yeah, look, sugar is bad,
but that stuff is even more. You should, but the alternative
is avoid both. Exactly. 100% black coffee,
that's the way to go. Exactly like my, like my, like

(02:26):
my soul. Yeah, our guest today we have
Mr. Jordan Rosenblum here live from Finland, as his name Will
on X. Will will tell you what's up,
Jordan. I'm doing, I'm doing happy to be
here. I'm doing, I'm doing sweet and
low. I'm doing stevia.

(02:46):
I don't know if he's these are expressions, but they can be
now. Hey Jordan, are you in violation
of Finnish law right now? You're not recording from a
sauna as far as I can tell. Shouldn't you be in a sauna as
we're recording this podcast? Like are you allowed to leave
the sauna to do podcasts? Is there an exemption in Finnish
law that allows you to step out of the the sauna for 15 minute

(03:08):
periods to to record podcasts? Yeah, they make a They make a
special exception for baseball projectors.
Because there's such a progressive country, they, I, I
love it. Like it's so progressive that
they let you leave the sauna just for a baseball podcast.
And there's not that many of there's not that many much
competition in terms of baseballprojections here.
So, but actually I've been getting into trouble lately

(03:29):
because in the sauna you're supposed to be quiet and just
like talk to each other and or maybe just enjoy the silence.
But I I've been like proposing that we bring our books in the
sauna. Yeah.
And that's a big. That's apparently.
Big no no. Big no no.
It's a. Big no no.
Also you keep yelling oopsie every time every 5 minutes in
the sauna, which weirds out of the other Finnish guys.

(03:50):
Yeah, that's also that's also been an issue, although I
haven't the most I heard it yelled was when I was with you 2
in Las Vegas that there was almost.
Well, well, well, guess what? You're going to hear it more in
the next hour than you heard it heard it in Vegas.
Off to a good start. Off to a good start.
Joke Jokes, jokes side, are you really into the sauna like

(04:11):
culture in Finland? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I really like it. I think I come from a more of a
hot tub family. My like American family is more
into the hot tub but I've replaced that with Sauna I.
Love, I love, I love, I love a dry sauna.
I think saunas are awesome. Yeah, we do.
Like we're going to do tonight, celebrate the completion of a

(04:33):
podcast maybe twice a week, maybe twice a week.
Yeah, and how, how long? Cuz I assume in Finland where
they take it very like, jokes aside, very seriously, I assume
it's fucking hot in the sauna. How long can you sit there
before it's just like, I have toget out?
This is a lot for me. I mean, if we bring our books,
then I I last longer cuz I'm distracted with the book, but

(04:56):
the an issue is the the core, the spine of the book melts and
the pages come out. Yeah.
So I've been having some issues with that, but we also don't go
that hot. It's like we, we usually go 60
or 70 Celsius but and then when you get to 8080 or above then it
then it can like sweat me out really fast.
Yeah I think, I think my sauna gets too hot is the problem and

(05:16):
I love a sauna. The fuck?
Like my breathing becomes just, it's tough for me when it gets
too hot after like 1520 minutes.Yeah, then yeah, I wouldn't stay
longer than 1015 minutes if it'slike at a hotter temperature.
Do you guys have like different types of sauna there?
Because I, I've, you know, I've been to a couple of like those
like Russian bath houses here inJersey and they have like the,

(05:38):
you know, like different like stones, different kind of saunas
too. This besides the you know the
additional ones. I mean, not the spas here may
have like more like Turkish sauna or like the steam ones,
whatever, but but here are the only kinds that the only
variations are like the wood sauna and the electric sauna.
And Finn's really like the wood,like the wood sauna.

(06:00):
It's awesome. But yeah, I'm still, I'm still I
don't appreciate the the new. I don't always appreciate the
the nuances in life. Now you have a special, you have
a special hat you're supposed towear in Finland, I think, when
you take the sauna, right? Yeah.
Like what do we call those? I'm not.
I don't know if I have the hat. I mean, there's this like

(06:21):
there's this like leaves that you hit each other with.
Yes, we've. Seen the leaves?
We, we, we have exciting news. We have new launch angle merch,
which is the official sauna hat of the Launch Angle podcast.
We're going to mail you a official launch Angle sauna hats
that Rob spent our budget on this year.
I, I disagreed. I didn't think that was the best

(06:42):
use of the launch angle marketing budget, but but Rob
was insistent that we build SATAhatch with blonde thing whole
logo on it. You're gonna get one of those in
the mail in in in a few months. Give it a few months.
I think it'll triple your revenue.
First time, first time that me and my wife go to one of these
bath houses, right? And it was it's completely
Russian bathhouse families in there.

(07:05):
Just just pounding vodka and then just heading into the
sauna, this guy tried to put a hat on me, like took one of the
community hats and he's like, I'm just like, so I put it on
and my wife's looking at me disgusted.
Like, do you know how disgustingthat thing is?
I'm like, what do you, what am Igoing to do?
Disobey this guy? He's 64 and he's pounding vodka.

(07:26):
What do you want me to do? And then, yeah, then they whip
out this thing and he she's like, and he's cracking,
cracking his his mother, who's like 75.
And she's in there just completely naked.
I'm like, what is this place about?
And just blasting her with this thing.
And yeah, apparently it's supposed to feel good.
You can actually pay too, to getblasted with this thing.

(07:47):
I'm like, yeah, I think I'm goodthough.
Last last, last finished question and we will actually
we'll get to to baseball. What's what's, what's, what's,
what's your origin story? I should know this.
You're obviously American. You live in Finland.
Give us, give us like a 3 minute.
How do you how do you end up in Finland?
My origin story, like how I became a super.

(08:08):
It's a traditional superhero, yeah.
Yeah, you, you, you. You found your, you found your,
you found your lair there. And the secret lair was happened
to be in house in Finland. So like what?
Choice do you have the only difference is my parents are
they're alive and well. Fortunately yes, so that has
made my story less sophisticatedno, but I, I have a pretty

(08:28):
typical American story up until like 2013 like I'm from New
Jersey. I went to University of
Maryland, then I then I switchedsort of from away, moved away
from business more towards like a sociology type of interests.
So I went to do my masters in Denmark and then I met my my

(08:50):
wife now there. So then then I she's.
Followed. It's all it's all a girl's
fault. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it's, yeah. It's pretty classic tale in that
way. Nice.
That's awesome. Yeah.
Good stuff. That's good stuff.
We've got a lot of stuff to talkabout.
We're going to get into Jordan'sOopsie projection system in a
little bit. We're going to hit some news 1st

(09:11):
and then we'll get to all thingsOopsie shortly after that.
Yeah, so we got some big prospects that are coming up or
or or up. Jack Cagliano and Ronnie
Mauricio made their debut this week.
So it's going to be a big NFBC fab weekend.
As everybody knows. Once these guys come up,
everyone loses their shit, losestheir control and just start

(09:33):
dropping money. The main event people.
That's it. So Jordan, you know, I know you
have these peak projection systems that you do for these
kind of players. So how do you like reel them in
and and then like kind of adapt to what they can possibly do for
you this year? Because I like looking at that
stuff and I like looking at likewhat they could possibly be at

(09:56):
their peak. But that also like kind of gets
me like, oh, can you be this player this year?
You know, I know obviously realistically it's not
happening. Yeah, yeah.
So for a redraft, which is wheremost of my like most of my like
budget is in higher, higher stakes reach athletes, I
generally won't even look at thepeak projections, although they

(10:17):
can capture because guys often like get to their peaks a lot
faster than like a standard agent curve would, would suggest
that maybe in just like a few years rather than into into
their late 20s, for instance. So for these guys, like I'm
focusing more on like playing time outlook and if a guy seems
like he's going to have a lot ofleash to play every day, then

(10:37):
he's it's worth a shot. The projections can move quite
fast. I mean, even for these these two
players, Kegley Anon like last year, he had a down debut year.
His projections were not good byaccording to end of the system.
Steamer was really, really down on him because steamer something

(10:58):
weird happens with with the steamer pre season projections,
like for the lower minors performances, like once they
realize that a guy is actually going to debut like Nick Kurtz,
the the projections just jumped like in March.
So they're like tweaking the assumptions, which is fine, but
but they're they're and all their projections were low on
him. But this year he's been amazing.

(11:20):
So you don't want to throw out the entire projections last
year, but I mean, if he has a couple good weeks, his
projections can move really fastin comparison to Major League
veterans that have like thousands of played appearances
in their projections. And I just just to pause on
that, I don't think it's a flaw in Steamer, right, because they

(11:41):
have to produce a projection forevery player in a Major League
system for how they would do in the majors this year.
So it's not unreasonable if you're taking a guy who was
drafted like 15 minutes ago, literally last summer's draft
and you're running a type of, ifthey were on a Major League
roster in 2025, what would be their WRC plus this year.

(12:04):
It's not unreasonable even if you're a fucking stud prospect
to say I think you'd produce a 70 WRC plus because by
definition you're not ready to play in the majors.
You just got drafted 10 minutes ago.
But we have to produce this projection.
So I don't think that's a a criticism of Steamer.
They have to produce like 10,000projections every year.

(12:26):
However, many players there doing literally like Albert Bell
still has a projection, like guys who have been out of
Baseball hub projections, if they came back at 57, what would
they be doing in the majors thisyear?
But then you got the outliers like him who obviously move up
as you say Jordan, and it moves quickly.

(12:47):
So I don't some people look at that and say like how can
steamers say this guy who's 7th best player in baseball is only
like a 70 WRC? It's like because it's not ready
to majors yet. Yeah, I agree.
But it's tricky because so DylanWhite likes to take the
Steamers. You guys know Dylan, He likes to
take the Steamers and apply the aging curves to see how the like

(13:11):
get the steamer peak projection equivalent to compare to his
work and to my work. And, and they don't really work
in that sense. If you have a really pessimistic
rookie projection for a stud, itthey don't grow enough that they
still like project terribly eventhat peak.
So in that sense they don't work.
But but then if if you look at mine, they, they, they, they do,

(13:32):
they are more consistent in the,in the sense that the peak
projections are good for the topprospects.
But if you look at guys that arelike my my tippy top peak peak
projections for prospects in thelower minors, I think I over
project them like now. So the, the real truth is
probably somewhere in the middleof Siemers pessimism and my
optimism for these lower minor guys.

(13:53):
But these guys almost never matter anyway.
So you're like, you're like Harold Reynolds during the MLB
draft where the guy picked in the 36th round, you're like, he
reminds me a lot, you know, eat Alonzo.
And he's like, he's going in the36th round and he's like a big,
fat first baseman. So he reminds you of Pete
Alonso. He's like, he's never gonna make

(14:15):
the majors. Why don't you ever say, Harold
that? He's like, he reminds me of this
guy I played with who got 4 at bats in the majors and is now
playing softball in New Jersey. And Ariel Cohen struck him out
three times last week. Yeah.
So that's basically the. You're basically the Harold
Reynolds of a ball. Pitch projections.

(14:37):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, and I'm not alone.
So like Lazaro Montez is 1 dude that me and Zips have like for
like a 90 maybe like a 90 or so WRC holding his own in the
majors. I don't know that he would
actually do that though, becausehe's only in high A like that
seems like ambitious. More more likely he will never
make the majors like all these guys more like.

(14:58):
Yeah, that's true for all these guys.
I think Montez is is a. Good enough It's an actual
prospect, yeah. Yeah, he should make it.
But my so right now my lower minor projections aren't popping
up for the rest of season projections for fan graft for
whatever reason. And I haven't bugged aplement
about it because I'm always bugging about stuff.
And also because some of them for the lower minors, like I

(15:19):
don't really, I'm not, I don't really want, I'm not like in a
rush for people to see those, but for pitchers, they're
working for whatever reason. So you can see a guy like Trey
Yesovich on the, on the Rays, he, he has a really good oopsie
projection now and, and maybe hewould be good.
I mean, he, he, he is like a, a longer track record as a
prospect, like a longer pre professional track record than

(15:42):
other guys. And he, he, he's probably going
to make it to AA pretty soon. But his projections are like,
really good and and a little unnervingly good.
So with the like players like Jack and Ronnie Ovicio, like I
know you've adapted the bat speed into your projection
system. So as basically as this stuff
comes in you, you're you're tweaking it as you as you

(16:05):
should. Yeah, so I have some data on bat
speed for Jack from the spring, but it's only 9 swings.
So it's pretty, it's pretty heavily regressed because I
think I add only four swings of regression to the mean because
bat speed's like pretty sticky, but four swings is like a, he

(16:27):
only has 9 swings. So he's getting that's like 4-4
out of 13. It's like 1/3 regressed.
So every week or so I update theprojections every day.
But the bat speed is a little more complicated.
I have to take it from Savant. So every week I do that every
week. So he should get a boost right
away from that because the bat speed, like the regression

(16:50):
amount is going to evaporate really quickly.
Right. Right.
Can I ask you an important question before we move on?
How would Jacques Italian grandmother pronounce his last
name? Because I'm having a tough time
pronouncing his last name properly as in Italian.
I could it. Should it should be Caglia
nonier like it should have that nonier?

(17:10):
So like nonier, yeah, say that, say that, say that.
Say that like you're an Italian.Like you were talking Italian to
somebody in Brooklyn. Caglia Nonier.
OK, Caglia, nonier. OK, I appreciate it.
Sorry, sorry, sorry to interrupther.
No, that was. I also was wondering about that.
That's another thing. You add that into the projection
system, you know, that's got to be a little boost, yeah.

(17:34):
Yeah, Mauricio, Mauricio, I don't think he has.
He only had any spring bat speed.
I just double checked. So he he'll get a boost too if
his bat speed. Has his bat speed been good?
I mean, he'll get a boost if hisbat speed's been good.
I mean, it depends. You have to.
I mean, don't you want contact to you need to.
Know are you violating the six commandments and saying

(17:56):
something negative about a met that they are Rob?
Yeah, he just looks awful right now.
I mean, it's the Dodgers. I get it, you know, coming back
up, playing in Dodger Stadium, but he just, he doesn't.
Like I thought $300 bids were authorized for him already for
this weekend? Don't yeah, tonight, you know,
when he hit the ball 119 I'll belike, Yep, go ahead $200.00.
But now I'm being a little over critical for him.

(18:19):
But I mean, he just looked at hedoesn't look like he's had a, a,
a real swing yet. You know, like a competitive
swing. It's a lot of flailing.
It's a lot of one handed, you know, haven't seen like a real
torque and and RIP from him yet.At least that's what I see.
I mean, and from the right side,he looks a lot smoother right

(18:40):
now than the left. But do you, do you incorporate
that? Like if there's a bat speed
difference, how do you do that? Like from the left and the
right. I do incorporate the handedness
in terms of like the park effects, but not in terms of
that sort of thing. So I just take the average you.
Take the average of the two. I hope that Ozzy Alvis will one

(19:02):
day abandoned his that's. It's it's an, it's an
interesting question because they're obviously getting more
plate appearances, switch hitters left-handed.
So it's not, it shouldn't be 5050, but the average shouldn't
incorporate that. But anyways, it's interesting.
Yeah, yeah. The average will I guess is the
average. The average is the average, but.

(19:24):
Yeah. If with if guys are being
platoons, yeah, it's an interesting question.
Yeah, yeah, definitely one of the things that I'd like to tap
into with the new bat speed stuff, the, you know, the Tommy
Edmonds of the world's, like, what are they doing different
from each side of the plate? And it's cool that we can
actually see that now. Yeah, Yeah.
I think there's a lot we can drill down into that like I, I

(19:44):
certainly haven't done it and and that many or maybe nobody
has done yet. You're just being a little bit
lazy is what you're saying, Jordan, so far?
Yeah, I think you could say I think it's fair.
So, so what's the interest levelthis weekend for these guys,
like high, medium, low? Are you expecting to go up to
the ranges that they're going tobe needed to acquire them?

(20:07):
I'm, I'm sure Jack's going to beway more than Movie Show, but
you know, I think they'll both be a pretty penny just because
of the name value. And the power like that they
bring. I I think that so Maurizio,
because of the 3030 potential ifyou knew and I, I asked this the

(20:27):
question in the discord, if you knew he was like had the job and
was going to keep the job all year.
From pure projection perspective, the speed with the
power just makes him a really interesting player.
I just think the Mets have too many options and I don't think
the Vientos injury it sounds like, and you'd know more than I
do, is that bad, Rob? So I worry with him like he's a

(20:52):
guy. If you go 200, you May 10 days
from now have a guy who's playing AAA again is the
challenge with the Mets. But the upside's right there.
Jacques like he's he's he's really going to have to
struggle. I think they will give him a bit
of rope at the majors before they they cut bait and they KC

(21:16):
can obviously use use his bat. So I think I think people are
going to go a little bit silly for him.
I don't know. What do you think, Jordan?
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure I'll be out bid on both
of those guys. My pit, my needs in most of my
league are mostly around pitching.
I have some bad pitching squads.So I've been really focusing.

(21:36):
Like I feel like if I haven't looked at it, but maybe this
year, probably 90% of my free agent budget has been on
pitchers. So I'll, I'll put some low bids
on these guys like because they can be upgrades on potential
upgrades on like my last starting hitter or bench spot.
But I, I do trust the projections in a sense that
these guys are high variants andthey, they certainly have

(21:58):
breakout potential. But on average, I think they,
they don't command like huge bids.
And my hitting is like in good enough shape that I don't need
to like, I don't need to roll the dice on these guys.
But generally, as a rule, I findmyself spending a lot more in my
leagues on good players that have been dropped because of bad

(22:18):
performance or good players thathave gotten hurt and been
dropped and then trying to time that stash correctly.
I I spend way more on that than on like prospect debuts.
Yeah, I love the old, I love those, those drops that really
they're the ones I think you canget the the best value from for

(22:38):
sure. You think You think so?
You're saving all your money forShane Bieber in all your
leagues, is what you're saying, Jordan?
We I I the the one league where I need Shane Bieber Chancellor.
I can't afford him. I wish I could though.
And then me and Dylan and Brian Slack have a Bieber share
because he for some reason got drafted and draft.
So we we added him pretty recently.

(22:59):
But like Andres Jimenez was drafted in one of my main
events. Yeah, two weeks ago.
So I just spent like 130 on him.Any anytime you can get a guy
who can hit 240 with 0 power andlike 15 stolen bases you have to
break the budget. I understand how that works,
Jordan. I thought I could play into your
Canada bias. No, no.

(23:21):
Are you? Are you gonna be spending the
whole winter Jordan trying to figure out why oopsie missed on
Lance Mccullers and how to improve the the projection
system to capture Lance Mccullers better next year?
Was this a? Was this a transition?
Is this related to what we were just talking about?
Or is this a separate? It's just me being an asshole.
I I bring in random asshole questions and with our guests to

(23:43):
make sure they never come back on at any time.
You have to be ready at all times.
No, it's a good question. It's a good question.
I just wanted to follow the. Yeah, no, because really it's a
big flaw in your system. How like a a mid 30s pitcher who
hasn't thrown a baseball in three years.
How the projection system didn'tget right on board with him.
No, it, it is actually tricky with, with, with Mccullers and

(24:04):
other injury guys. I, I, I'm not sure how exactly
to like, what's the best way to project those guys?
Usually I take their most recentprojection that I had when they
were like the last projection I had from Mccullers was at the
end of 2022. And I just in preseason.
I use that. But then it changes really
quickly once the year starts andnew data comes in, and that's a

(24:27):
little messy. I don't know what the best way
to do it is though, so there is no question.
It's the the actual answer is avoid guys who haven't been able
to throw a pitch in Four Seasons.
Is my not really not to go not to go full doctor Dave, but I
think the right answer is if youif you miss on the the upside
with 1 Lance Mccullers, you alsowon't draft 19 guys who just are

(24:48):
still hurt. Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, they're almost free.So yeah, I know it doesn't hurt
to it doesn't hurt to keep him in mind, I guess.
But it's it's so it's so rarely relevant.
Like Daniel Espino might come back this summer.
Wow. And and if he looks good, why
not put a cheap bit on him? But it's certainly you shouldn't

(25:10):
rely on it. Is he really due back this
summer? I, I think he, I think he is I,
I would have to, I mean do back is like a really heavy, a really
strong choice of words for for Espino.
So, but but I think he is expected to come back and I
don't know if he's I think he's expected to start still, but I

(25:31):
don't know if that's true either.
I wonder, I wonder, we're jumping all over the place.
I'll let Rob get back control ofhis podcast in a minute.
But we talked about Bieber, who obviously will be back, you
know, in relatively short order.I wonder if Kirby being as bad
as he has been since he's come back, he's going to temper some
of the enthusiasm about Bieber. Not that they're the same, not

(25:54):
that the injuries exactly the same, but it's a really high
profile reminder of like even ifyou are a top pitcher, like
fuck, the variance is big that when you'd first come back from
an injury like that. And Kirby's unstartable right
now, I think if you if you have Kirby on your team.

(26:16):
And I worry if I have to bid on Bieber this Sunday without
seeing him have a couple start in the majors, like can I play
him? And therefore do I want to spend
the $200 plus it's going to costto get Bieber when he becomes
available in weeks he wasn't drafted it.
Yeah, I think Bieber and guys like that, they're not
prospects, but they weren't drafted so that they're not

(26:38):
going to be discounted. They'll be like.
No, no, Bieber, Bieber, Bieber on paper, if you're a projection
person or just a logic person, is the best pitcher who will
come into the player pool on paper the rest of the season.
I think like, like unless, unless you, because I think
Bubba Chandler is like drafted in every single main event at

(26:59):
least, right, Rob? Yeah, yeah.
So like Bubba is not going to bewidely available.
So I think, I think it's fair tosay Bieber is the best on paper
pitcher. But much like a it's different
than a prospect, but it's it's, it's not that different.
I don't know who Bieber is goingto.
Be I would take we've. Seen, we've seen.
We've really You take Montes over.

(27:19):
But Bieber? 100%.
Wow, that's a bold call. 100%. I.
Agree that that's a bold call. I would.
I was sick. Why not?
He would better he he was. He was incredible last year.
second-half of the year 27% K rate.
He's on The Who have a completely revitalized Canon.
Made Blackburn look great. Oh, absolutely.

(27:40):
Because we've seen, we have seen, we have seen Bieber be
mediocre to bad with like not his best stuff, right?
We've also seen Bieber obviouslybe awesome.
Like awesome. Yeah, I mean, Bieber had Bieber
had his last start was like incredible.
I think he had like 11 strikeouts and then he.

(28:01):
I know. I, I, I, I, I, I remember.
In fact, I, I remember like thisguy fucking asshole Rob Dipietro
and Matt Mojica doing a startingpitcher pod.
And it's like si young Bieber back.
And then he was gone. He was.
Gone, if that, yeah. And you know what?
He was throwing like a little bit harder.

(28:22):
And you know, of course we had the Doctor Davis, something
like, that's why you don't throwharder.
You know, stop trying. Stop trying so hard, Bieber.
Yeah, it's just throw 90. It's fine.
I do like Bieber a lot too, but I think I would just rather have
montage at this point. Interesting.
Yeah, yeah, but Jordan, you did mess in stashes real quick.

(28:44):
How many guys you were on the stash in like a main event or
Champions League type format at at once?
Did you have a limit or it's just like I'm getting the best
players and if I can make it work I'll load them up?
I mean, in the preseason I kind of thought I got a lot of
criticism for it cuz I did some early drafts that were that had
a lot of attention on them and people were generally really

(29:05):
uncomfortable with the stashes. But so I kind of was like, all
right, I shouldn't go above 3 inthe preseason.
But I actually realized now it'snot a big deal.
You can stash, you can say it's even more than three.
I think now nowadays most of my teams may have two or three
injured guys. And if they don't, then I'll,
I'll make sure they do. I'll go add some dudes because

(29:26):
it's hard. I I think there's not, there's
not usually a huge difference inhitters from week to week.
You're talking like about a couple extra razz ball projected
dollars between your worst benchhitter and your and your
starter. So I do want coverage, a little
bit of coverage for surprise injuries that tend to happen
with hitters. So like generally my rule of

(29:48):
thumb is I want to be able to have one surprise injury to my
hitters in a given week. I want to be able to replace him
without taking the 0. But I I don't need to be
prepared for two surprise injuries.
That's too much. One surprise injury is enough
preparation for me. And if I have bad luck, I could,
I could end up with two surpriseinjuries some some weeks, but
it's pretty rare. And then I want a lot of

(30:10):
pitchers so I can play the matches, I think.
Rob, at some point mention to mehow if if you don't have like
10-11 pitch starting pitchers, you're going to have to have to
like play the waiver wire. And and that's been an issue,
especially with my Champs Leagueteam that I had very few healthy

(30:32):
pitchers early on. Like Kyle Hart was my SP7, He's
no longer my. How did that work out for you,
Jordan? Not well, it didn't.
Work out, Didn't Oopsie have like a 2.4 projection?
A era projection for. Him.
No, Oopsie didn't like him because Oopsie doesn't do KBO,
but it would have liked him. Davenport likes, likes.

(30:53):
Him I play Daven. The only problem is Davenport
last updated his projections in in 2021 so that like they were
old projections for heart. I mean, he he somehow manages to
find time to update his projections despite also being
in charge of the projections forlike the weather in the in the
United States. Luckily, I believe that.

(31:16):
Anyways, I was going to make a political comment.
I won't. I think if he was in charge of
projecting the weather, I think his budget was just cut, so I
don't think he has to do weatherprojections anymore.
More time to do. More time to update his Japanese
Major League translations. Yeah, I mean, then me and Derek
and Steamer and Ariel are all introuble if if Clay has more

(31:36):
time. Are you ever gonna try to create
your own Major League equivalents for Japanese Korean
baseball leagues? Yeah, I think so.
I mean it's the way I would do it is quite similar to how I do
it for the minors. So methodologically I feel
comfortable with it. I just haven't had time because
I I, I basically just been treading water, just keeping up

(31:57):
with my up my daily updates, pain in the ass and and then
trying to produce fan grass articles.
I haven't written one now in in like I think in in about a
month. I mean, I had my honeymoon in
there, so it's a decent excuse, but I'm due for I'm due for a
fan grass article now too, because I wanna, I'm trying to
juggle, wear many different hatslike and mostly, especially

(32:20):
Rob's Russian sauna hat. Yeah, yeah.
Are your, are your daily updatesnot automated?
Like you have to do something each day to update those.
Yes, yes, basically I have to they're, they're mostly updated,
but they're mostly automated. But I basically have to drop
some CSVS in a particular folderand then I hit refresh, I hit

(32:44):
refresh and then the rest is automated.
But yeah, there's not that many clicks.
But, but, and I'm trying to moveto like R to automate it more.
And I, I, I can do the projections there now, but
there's some issues with R and, and like pulling like low minor
league data. It's the data seems incomplete.
So I it's not really good enoughquality yet that I feel
comfortable doing it there. Yeah, you wouldn't want, you

(33:05):
want to want to want to screw upthose rookie ball projections,
the complex league. If the complex league aren't
accurate every morning, people will lose their minds.
It doesn't matter to us but but the dynasty Leaguers, the
dynasty leaguers care. I know, very.
True. Good point.
What about Jacob Melton? What do you got for Jacob
Melton? Jordan, Yan Tan.

(33:29):
I'm not sure what the playing time outlook is, but the
projections looks quite like forgettable like enough that I
wouldn't. I wouldn't pay too much
attention unless the playing time outlook was really good.
Yeah, cuz he made a pretty big jump like when I was just
looking at some of the like the batted ball stuff on specific
pitches too from like last year to this year.

(33:51):
And it's a small sample, but it's it did look like he got a
little bit better from last yearAAA to this year AAA.
But yeah, I'm wondering what that PT is like too.
I don't know if he's, if he's just swapping for Dicenzo, then
he was like all over the place with PT if alt Tuesday is
playing more at second base recently.
So if that's going to be more ofa thing then I could see that
jumping up, but definitely up inthe air for sure.

(34:14):
But it could be a little bit of a a cheap stolen base source
this weekend. I feel like a cheap, cheap
flyer, but you know, yeah, when?I'm fine with I'm fine with
anybody that plays basically I'll I'll consider them and they
could have some use to me. And he does look pretty fantasy
friendly. Like in a full season he could
steal 30 and and hit 15 homers just with really rough rate
stats. But a lot of those guys are

(34:36):
interesting. I think like 80 WRC guys but
they have solid power and speed combo.
I I I not to be conspiracy theorist, this is the most
Houston thing I can imagine. They, I think are showcasing him
for a trade. I think they want to pump him up
as a prospect and include him toflip him.

(34:56):
They've done that a bunch of times.
So I think they just they need Bob body, but I think they also
want to give him some value so that a trade can happen in the
next few weeks for them. I.
Like that, but Pablo Lopez on the shelf for probably 8 to 12
weeks. Do you guys have him anywhere?
If you do, are you holding or would you hold for Pablo Lopez?

(35:18):
I have a shit ton of Pablo Lopezand I think he's a very easy
cuts in tablets easy. Like not a not a not even not
even a question. Like I, I understand Jordan's
whole stash a couple of guys, but when they say 8 to 12 weeks
in the So the best case scenariois he's back sometime in August,

(35:38):
more likely in September. I'm, I'm, I'm not holding a
pitcher for that long. That's.
Easy job. Yeah, No, I I agree with you.
But even though I like stashing,I think it's all about timing.
So for me, the more interesting question is when, when do I add
Pablo back? Because I would like to have him
for that last month. Sure.
So if, if the, if the headlines are looking good and maybe he's

(35:59):
trending more towards the early end of that timeline, then you
could in early July, I would scoop them up.
But if, if you're not getting many updates, I might wait.
I might wait till after the All Star break.
I like that too. You got a guy that come back off
the stash list, you put another guy on it, right?
I like that kind of logic. I'm.
Gonna live on the edge. It's a little stressful, but

(36:19):
it's a. It's you and that is the benefit
of stashing guys is you have a stash, they come back.
You just have freed up almost bydefinition a roster spot because
whoever, whoever Mike Trout is replacing up on your roster, you
have some outfielder that isn't easy cuts or your last bench bat
becomes an easy cut. So you can keep churning without

(36:42):
having unless you've really lucked into an awesome bat who's
like rock and rolling and then you may have a tough decision.
It is the nice thing, especiallyat the beginning of the season.
So you by definition filled, youknow, filled the you have
somebody for Ronald de Cunha at the beginning of the year.
Except, except in leagues when Iplay with you.
I think the only time, the only time I didn't get them was in

(37:04):
the. Auction together, yeah.
Did you call Lacuna? Did you, How many you, you.
You have lacuna everywhere, Jordan.
In all the I don't have them in TGFBI, but who cares about that?
I have them in all my high stakes.
Yeah, yeah. Besides, but I mean partially
Brian and Dylan, I had to be a little bit, I had to be a little

(37:25):
bit more balanced and and I can just do whatever I wanted and
get a CUNA everywhere. Yes.
Yeah, I wanted to he I got him. I grabbed the Minute Maid event.
The he's definitely not a doctor.
Dave approved main event with I had Devers Acunia.
It's definitely not an improved one, but it was, you know, I at

(37:46):
one point that Devers is real low.
I was like, fuck, man. Acunia is not coming back for a
while. Rafael Devers is a top 20 player
in baseball right now. Like Devers?
Oh, I know, I'm just. Staying out of his mind.
At one point it was like, I don't know if this was the best
way out, but finally. I hadn't checked ever since his
first ten plate appearances has he improved?
I won't give you, I won't give away the ending in case you want

(38:08):
to binge watch and Rafael Dever's season this winter, but
it it it's taken an unexpected turn for since those first two
games. Yeah, but but yeah, Rob, I see
here you have the the over underon Acuna's stolen.
Base Yes, yes, let's talk about this just yet.
I don't know if it's, you know, if that's something that you

(38:29):
will kind of try to change for rest of season ejection like
based on his like attempts or just not play with.
It, I mean, stone bases already move pretty quickly, but I think
you could make like like a dummyvariable that like if they have
a leg injury, you reduce like half a stolen basis or something

(38:52):
like that. But I think those are best
reserved for qualitative judgements.
I don't think projections need to capture every single thing.
So now, now, now Acuna is down to 25 for the rest of the year,
but he's not, he hasn't run at all.
And he he may not run at all. I mean, maybe he doesn't have
the he seems to not have the green light.
I would set the over under on like I think 25 is still too

(39:13):
much. I think he's still, I think he
could still get 10 or 15, but I would like to see one attempt.
The thing about the thing I think we may have talked about
this in the preseason or right after I, I got a Cunha in our
draft is if you took any of his public projections and knocked
his stolen bases to quite literally 0 in the preseason, he

(39:36):
was still a great buy where he was going in drafts when you
added in a replacement player. One of the underrated things
about Acuna's greatness, he likeI haven't looked at oopsie.
He has one of the top 3 or 4 batting average projections in
most projections. Like he has a basically
basically a three, basically a 300 projected batting average,

(40:00):
which is, you know, like guys just don't get 300 projected
batting averages. So like, yes, obviously as a
multiple Lacuna or owner, I would love him to get 15 to 20
stolen bases rest of seasons. But if he just gives me just if
he just gives me 30 home runs and a 300 batting average the
rest of the way, I'll fucking take that in a second from

(40:22):
Ronald Lacuna. I'll find the speed that I might
like need from that outfield spot.
Yeah, I think I think it's hard to be upset with Acuna at this
point, even though he came back like more towards the
pessimistic scenarios in the timeline and the stolen bases
look more pessimistic. But people didn't really give
enough credit to how good of a hitter he is.

(40:43):
He's one of the best hitters in baseball.
Ignoring all the rest of that, he's a crazy source of power and
average and runs in RB is so it's hard to feel to even though
I feel like not everything worked out as well as it could
have in terms of stone based aggressiveness and and him
coming back in in in later laterunder this timeline, it's still

(41:04):
hard to be it's it's hard to complain too much.
Yeah. I oh, there's if you start, if
you start going to the screen blanket and complaining about
Ronald Acuna on your fucking team like that's that's like
that's like Cujo. I have the second team overall
in the online complaining about how one of his guys only started

(41:24):
played two of three games on weekend level.
Shut the fuck up. I would.
Never bring that. I would never bring that that
that level of complaint to the screen, the screen pillow.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I save it for Detmer.
I save it for Detmer's bat and Francis.
So only real, real serious. Yeah.
Save it for Detmer's picked up asave.

(41:45):
Did you have him in there for the save?
Oh man, no. I moved on after the 15 run, the
three day 15 run outing. Psychologically that there's is
very damaging to me, but I actually figured a way to cope
with it. So if I allocate all of I have
Kodai Sanga too, if I allocate all of Detmer's nine runs in

(42:07):
that one outing to Kodai Sanga, then his ERA would be like 350.
And that's like what he does more like what he deserves maybe
anyway. So if I if I reframe it like
that I allocate my blow ups to my lucky starters, it can
preserve my sanity. Even though it probably sounds I
love it to you guys a little. Bit this, this is basically
being this is a, this is basically the exact opposite of

(42:31):
New York sports talk radio at this point.
You acting completely rational and and calm.
It's like, look, we've gotten a lot of good things that we're
probably we didn't deserve some bad things we don't deserve.
It's like this is the opposite of that that type.
I totally agree for my like I think I said in the discord with
the Luzardo blow up like Oh my God, 12 or run.

(42:51):
I'm like, did you start them allyear?
Like yeah, like then you have a three, five year, right, You
know, yeah, it's. Like it's been.
Fine, Yeah, 1. That's why you shouldn't watch
the games. That's why you shouldn't check
the scores. You shouldn't watch the games.
Or check or check. Sounds good.
It's not August 1st yet. Don't check the standings like
you don't need to know what the standings.
Are or even play fantasy baseball.

(43:12):
No, no, no, exactly. Don't even do FAB.
Just just. Completely definitely don't
draft any pictures. If you don't draft any pictures,
your pitching staff will be fine.
Did that? Did our one listener who who
keeps forgetting to do FAB? Has he remembered to do FAB?
In. In my league in in the Patreon

(43:33):
there's 11 reader who every every every week in the screen.
Pillar, OH for a couple weeks ina row.
He forgot. Yeah, he forgot to do.
Hopefully he's. Not that's just a joke because
he does all 50s and and and no fabulous.
Oh, he doesn't. Oh, it's actually a joke, OK.
That's a yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, oh fuck yeah, yeah,
yeah. If you're, if you're religiously

(43:53):
checking the Patreon for for ourPatreon, like can't get your
shit together to work, forget like I did well in fab or I ran
out of time to like really nail fab.
It's just Sunday afternoon and then evening came and it's like,
oh fuck, I knew there was something I was supposed to do,
but I was talking baseball here all day.

(44:16):
Fantasy fantasy baseball probably is not the right hobby
for you at that point. I think I think that's fair.
100% So Jordan, let's talk a little bit about the oopsie
itself. I know you just shared with me.
I shared with Rob also he has sought some of the your your
early season measuring stick as you like to say.
Could you do check up in on it? So tell us a little bit about

(44:40):
that so far. Yeah.
So kind of just recreating the analysis that you see in the
sort of projection review articles at the end of the year,
you, you're like looking how well the forecast compared to
the actual. Like if you take woba, how well
the projected woba compares the actual woba.
Then you wait that by the 2025 plate appearances and you

(45:01):
rescale everything to assume thesame like league average 'cause
we kind of as projectors, we, wedon't really know what the
league environment. It's reasonable that we're not
really expected to know what theleague environment is coming in,
and most projectors just take the most recent league
environment and assume that it it it will continue to be

(45:21):
similar, which hasn't. Which isn't usually the case,
although. This year is still silly
projection systems assuming Major League Baseball will use
the same baseball 2 years in a row.
Ha ha ha. Yeah, but you have the torpedo
bats and the drag baseballs likecounteract working against each
other and and perfectly cancelling each other out this
year so far. You have like a league average
this year, I think four O 2 ERA maybe and last year's four O 8

(45:43):
ERA. So for it's been it's been
similar enough. But yeah, so just recreating
that analysis, but just for the first, I've done it each month
just in in a different tweets and I just compared to the bad X
or steamer depending on how lazyI am.
But bad X is generally the one sort of best in class.
So I'm not picking on I'm not like picking on Derek.

(46:07):
I just have a great respect for it and I don't want I want I
want to be competitive with it. Love it.
But yeah, I think some of these oopsie jerks are still holding
me back. But but it's been better this
month than last month because like Joe Adele has like guys
like Joe Adele have picked it upa little.
So I actually I had AI was a little bit better in terms of

(46:28):
woba than than the bad ex. Now, like for for through the
games of yesterday, my web projections have been ever so
slightly better, but it's basically a tie.
And then OBPI have a pretty big edge, but slugging percentage.
Derek has a big edge and and andthey kind of offset an OPS Derek

(46:50):
has a small edge. And I the way I did it, I think,
I think you always have to be skeptical of the person who does
this because like you guys know how whoever writes the article
is likely tends to be the personwho also wins the projection
comparison. No, no, don't.
Don't be silly, Jordan, just because you've created a
incredibly complicated fake auction system that you'll

(47:14):
determine which player you wouldhave bought.
You know your. Projections.
I think it's unfair to claim that just the people who write
the article are always going to be sorry.
Go ahead. No, I, I, but I think it's fair
to be skeptical because like because of the incentives there
and, and there's nothing even nefarious, but we're just likely
to make small little, like little changes, methodological

(47:37):
tweaks. Like the first month.
I, I included steamer and the bad X 'cause I was more nervous
about the first month for oops. He was my first month ever and
and I didn't I, I preferred not to finish the last.
So I, I also brought in steamer to see how I compared and I was
kind of in the middle. But now I feel a little more
confident. I got one month, one good month

(47:57):
in the books. So I just did me VS the bad X
this time. And, and I think overall one
take away from it is I kind of took the bat speed gains and,
and, and I allocated them only to homers and double s to be, to
be simple or like, because bat speed has the biggest impact on

(48:18):
those. But it doesn't really only
impact that. It kind of impacts everything.
If you can take your bat speed, all else equal, if you can take
your bat speed up a notch, probably you see little, little
improvements to your outcomes across the board of singles,
double S, triples, walks and strike guys.
You probably see them all. So I want to do a more balance
next year because I think probably allocating it in that

(48:38):
way, it helped with the woba projection, which I care the
most about, but I also want to get the components right.
So I think that's one thing I can do.
Another thing I can do differently.
I, I looked at the difference between the bad X and Oopsie and
various. The bad X is, is it's called the
bad X because it incorporates that cast.
But I haven't listened to all the pods with, with Derek and,

(48:58):
and I don't know exactly what itincludes.
Maybe you guys can can actually confirm or deny because you may
know better than me, But I I looked at the delta between our
projections and then like lookedat which that cast metrics that
was correlated with. And it seems like all of the
quality of contact measure measures I may weigh at least as
heavily as him or maybe even more heavily.

(49:20):
So. So barrels like hard hit Expo,
that kind of stuff. It seems like I have given its
due my due. I may have not captured it in
the same way, but by capturing bat speed and barrels, I've kind
of covered that. But then there are a few things
that he seems to be measuring that are are kind of correlated

(49:43):
with the differences between ourprojections.
So one is the sweet spot. That seems to be the biggest
thing correlated with why, why the bat is higher on certain
guys than me. It's because the sweet spot
variable, which I think makes sense and and if you look at a
guy, one of the biggest guys that I fucked up on this year

(50:03):
relative to the bad X, one of mybiggest oopsies or if you guys
wanna. All very clever.
I see what you did. I see what you did there,
Jordan. That was very witty.
I should have let you shout. I know you like shouting.
I should. Have I love shouting at will?
Oopsie. But yeah, Will Smith is one of
the guys that bat was hot. It's one of the errors that one
of my largest errors compared tothe the bat.

(50:23):
He's been really good this year and I under projected him and he
has really good sweet spots. So maybe that's one thing.
The other thing that the other thing that that I I don't
capture yet that the bat does orthat the bat appeared to capture
based on the, the like the correlation between the
difference of our projections and like stack cast measures is

(50:45):
Sprint, Sprint speed. So that's another they're
they're both kind of small. They should have smaller
impacts, but I think they can help me help me improve.
Do you think do you think including Sprint speed might
have changed your Gian Carlos Stanton projection at all?
Oh yeah, that would've been great.
Like see if I if I didn't just allocate all the bat speed gains

(51:07):
to homers and and I also captured for Sprint speed.
I think Stanton is the projection I was the most kind
of like embarrassed about not that, not that.
I mean, I think he probably willbe fine if he's like, if he's
actually healthy when he comes back.
Yeah. It seemed too.
It seemed like too many. Probably, probably too bullish

(51:30):
Slightly, yeah. I mean, if he has two working
elbows, he he probably. Resumes hitting the ball.
It's unless he's like unless he's like wheelbarrowing to 1st
with like Aaron Judge carrying his legs.
I think he needs 2 legs and two elbows.
Yeah, yeah. Plus the Yankees are.

(51:51):
They're so stacked and he's likeso banged up that even when he
gets back I probably will want him, but I'm a little more
tempered, cautious than I would be otherwise because he's
probably going to rest a lot. I hope so.
I hope he rests as much as he can to let Ben Wright still
play. He fucks up he he counter
intuitively fucks up that lineupso badly because he can only DHC

(52:15):
truly. I mean, even A, we know only a
healthy Giancarlo Stanton can only be ADH at this point of his
career. So it's he like he really is not
an ideal roster spot for them, but they could use they can use
another big bat. So it's it's going to be
interesting what they do there because it's like, like Goldie's
been good. Like it's, it's, they're a

(52:36):
weird, they're a weird line up in so many ways.
Yeah, it's already stacked, evenwithout standing back and and
like Grisham being competent this year again.
Yeah, it's already, there's already been a lot of rests for
guys like Dominguez and and Rice, and I think it's been
pretty annoying. Yeah.
So I just want to hit on the thesweet spot thing.

(52:56):
It's just like just a a better gauge of someone who could
elevate the ball more to like ideal launch angles that that
that makes that good. It's not captured like in
anything else, like just straight like average launch
angle. Yeah, I, I guess it's like the
more sophisticated version of average of like average launch

(53:18):
angle. I'm just looking at the, the
percentage of balls in play thatwere hidden on the sweet spot.
But it's not as simple as it's going to be pretty annoying to
incorporate because it's not as simple as like that speed or
like pitching velocity where youget it stabilized really quickly
and you don't have to worry about the minor league track
record and stuff like that. It's like a a much more volatile

(53:40):
stat. So it'll be it'd be kind of
annoying that I won't be able tolike include the minor league
sweet spot as easily, or maybe I'll only be able to do it for
AAA, but it's so. Explain to me Sir, why why
aren't these like why isn't thislike the lollipops where so many
of these things are redundant toeach other?

(54:02):
Like why does something like sweet spot add more value than
than like then bats like aren't aren't these building off the
hard hit rate? Like aren't they these just
different ways of saying very similar things?
So explain to a dummy like me why something like that actually
adds more value that is not incorporated in the other stat

(54:23):
cast data? That is speaking to very, very
similar things. Well, I don't know that it does
for sure, but I know that it explains the difference between
me and the bat. But I'm kind of hypothesizing
that that could be why the bat like does better than me in
certain metrics. But I don't actually know for
sure because I it's not like howI would actually answer.

(54:44):
That is I look at my WRC projections now, let's say, and
they capture everything that goes into my model now.
So like all your typical stats and then bat speed and then also
barrels. And then I would add, I've done
this with certain metrics. I, I could add spray angle or

(55:04):
sweet spot and see if it improves what, what's already in
there. So in that way you can, you can
kind of you're controlling for both what you've already
accounted for and the new variable and you're only
capturing impacts of new variable and it above what you
already know. So you're not double counting in
that way if you use regression that way.
And I did that for pull because I don't have a spray angle in

(55:26):
there. And I did that for spray angle
and it and it it didn't, it didn't help above what I already
have in there, But I'm still not, I still don't want to throw
it out in I I, I I don't have ityet, but but I still want to go
back to it because I know that it helps specifically with
homers, but I think it it may help with homers, but then it
has offsetting impact with like bat pip.

(55:48):
So in that way, it didn't help the overall WRC projections, but
I think it may still be worth trying to think about how to
force it in there somewhat some way.
But, but I think that's the sortof thing that I that I would do
and and I'll do that with, with sweet spot and I could do it
also with Sprint speed to see ifI'm, I have a bias, like if I'm

(56:09):
biased, if adding those metrics improves my projections beyond
what I already what, what, what they already capture.
I will say, and I'll, I'm not just saying this because you're
here because I'll be an asshole to you in about 30 seconds.
I respect the shit out of you, Jordan, for both the
transparency that you're bringing, but not just the
transparency you're bringing. It's like you obviously care

(56:33):
very deeply about these projections and you want them to
be the best projection system that is available anywhere.
But it's so easy to fall into the I have the best projection
system and it's awesome and write a story, an article at the
end of the year showing here arethe 15 players I nailed better
than everybody else and here's the system that proves it and

(56:53):
that's great. I understand why.
If I had a system out there, my ego, my brand, my whatever is
attached to it. You've taken your are taking in
some ways the exact opposite approach, which is you're
acknowledging it's a work in progress.
It's not perfect that you want to keep making it better.
And I think it gives you so muchmore credibility in that sense

(57:13):
that you, you acknowledge like I'm trying I'm I'm obsessed with
making it better and I think it will be better a month from now,
six months from now, next winter, a year from now.
And to me, that's I, I would have so much more faith in using
your projections than just the here's an article at the end of
the year. Let me tell you how awesome I am

(57:35):
because of both the transparencyand you obviously are both a
wicked smart guy because you cando this stuff.
I could never do that. There are other people, Phil and
others who can do this kind of thing.
But like that, you're very open about that.
You're actually experimenting, testing, improving there.
Cardi's the same like I, I, I have tons of time and respect

(57:57):
for Cardi. It's his business.
So he's trying to make a living on DFS and, and selling the
projections, but but he's very open about how he's trying to
keep making it better and he tests things.
Some things get rejected becauseit adds nothing.
Some things get incorporated because it makes it better.
And I just, I I so much rather that than just the hype article

(58:17):
at the end saying here's a test and look at how much better I am
than everybody else. No disrespect to anybody else
with that. That's my bias.
I think that it's selfish because if I, I also kind of to
me like seeing the, the hype articles like that, it also kind
of undermines credibility. So I want to write the stuff
that I that I would find credible myself, but that that

(58:38):
was extremely kind though. So I think you have to be.
You said you're going to be an asshole.
I will, don't worry, don't worry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
start making Yuri Curry. And like Teamu, Solani jokes any
minute now to play. Those are the two best finished
hockey players of all time, Rob.Yeah, good.
Sure. Good.
Yeah, You got to keep it. You got to keep it balanced.
I think you got you. Got to NHL 94 on Sega with

(59:00):
Teemo. He was ATI code.
And, and, and Yeri Curry, peoplethink that it was just because
he was with Gretzky. Yeri Curry, who is who was who
was the best finished hockey player of all time, is a true
Hall of Famer. And like Teemo was awesome, but
Yeri Curry was next level. Like Gary Curry was incredible.
Yeah, he does seem to get knocked down by the Gretzky.

(59:21):
I could make use of. I could make use of these
tidbits, I think, and it's a small talk here.
There you go. When you're when you're sitting
in the sauna, things get awkwardfast when they start talking
Finnish hockey players as you'resitting there in the Schmitz.
You haven't been able to hold myown until now.
Jordan, if you want to fold in my papayetary pulled plus and

(59:41):
athlete plus into your projection systems, nice.
Maybe maybe it'll, you know, boost it up a little bit now,
but I always talk to you about about that, like kind of I'm
obsessed with all the pole spraystuff and I totally agree.
Like there's some stuff that canadd to power, but like you said,
maybe it takes away elsewhere, you know?
Let me let me ask, can I ask a projection question.
I know you've done work with Enoand I think the world of Eno.

(01:00:03):
I think he's a fucking brilliantwriter, brilliant pitching
analyst. How do you incorporate when
you're drafting and kind of figuring out which pitchers you
want to draft? Jeff.
Jeff Zimmerman, our former. Colleague here has done some
work where I think it was in this past year's process where

(01:00:25):
for pitchers he found that goingstraight projections is not the
best way to rank pitchers. That incorporating a combination
of straight projections as well as things like Spore or or Eno's
lists of pitchers and some kind of a blended approach.
What's your approach when you'reyou're kind of ranking pitchers

(01:00:46):
to go through for a draft? I think mine it's worked pretty
well in recent years. So I basically just average for
pitchers specifically. I think steamer's kind of like
the like repeatedly seems like the best one, the most
consistent 1 and I think mine have been have a decent track
record now also. So I, I usually, I think in the
past, last year I averaged them.This year I went 2/3 me one

(01:01:09):
third steamer in terms of rate stats, just because like if I'm
gonna, if I'm going to talk the talk, then I should like, I
should like walk the walk kind of at least to some extent.
So just average them in terms ofrates stats.
And then for the innings, the innings is more like it's more
pseudo scientific, just averaging a bunch of inning
sources. But I, I'm a little lazy too.

(01:01:30):
So I might just average depth charts and and ATC, even though
that's averaging the averages like unnecessarily tedious, but
it, it work, it works fine. Then the innings I'm more open
to like kind of messing with them for like qualitative
reasons, so. But you given that kind of the

(01:01:51):
stuff plus is incorporated in your projections, you don't you
would be double counting it if you started like taking Eno's
pitcher rankings and averaging it out with your projections.
It would be redundant and you would, I don't want to put words
in your mouth. It would be taking away from the
value of your projections ultimately.

(01:02:11):
Yeah, I'm not going to look at any sort of pitcher ranks
articles, but I feel I, I get that those are useful, but I, I
do like the fan. I I mean Fangrass auction
calculator. I, I like it and I make my own
versions of that. And, and otherwise like as
someone who's like done ranks myself, it's just too, it's too
hard of an activity and it's notsomething that I and, and it's

(01:02:33):
too like qualitative of an activity.
It's very hard to be like consistent and and make ranks
that you feel really like every every player, every player,
every single comparison is like how you would want it to be like
every guy that's ranked lower than another guy is ahead of
everyone. That should be I I can't really
articulate it exactly, but but but yeah, I think since stuff is

(01:02:57):
already in there and I think it's not like it doesn't move
the projections as much as as maybe as, you know, probably not
as much as, you know, wants because sometimes he sometimes
he, I see him boosting guys in his ranks.
It's his baby. It's his baby.
We all, we all, we all have, we all have our, we all have our
babies and we all think our babies are the most beautiful,

(01:03:19):
handsome, smartest, cutest baby in the world.
And it turns out most of our babies are like 7 out of 10's
and pretty mid. But they're wonderful in their
own way because they're our babies.
And I don't I don't blame anybody for loving their own
baby. Yeah, but I think Strider
specifically is interesting because now everyone's kind of
panicking and whenever guys havea.

(01:03:40):
Couple. Whenever guys have a couple of
bad outings like this, I feel like we get a bunch of articles
trying to explain it. And you could find like little
differences or differences in his stuff and velocity between
this year and and the last time he was healthy.
But this is all accounted for inthe projections and and it's all
going to probably going to be a blip unless he gets hurt again.

(01:04:00):
Like we're going to forget that we were talking about this.
I I think like Edwin Diaz in thespring or it seems like every,
every year we have to talk aboutEdwin Diaz and why he's no
longer good or something. And then and then it's it
becomes ridiculous. You.
Remember when Sunny Gray couldn't Sunny Gray couldn't get
a single guy out this spring training?
Like he'd really, he just could not get anybody out in the

(01:04:22):
spring, in the spring. And it was like, wow, Sunny Gray
is cooked clearly. Yeah, yeah.
We have you take our enjoy this year like gonna seamlessly go
back to. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I think, I think his stuff is down a little.
So he'll be a little, he'll be his.
Vasi's down a little and he's had some a little bit of

(01:04:43):
struggles in, in a very, very small sample.
But I think, I think Strider will be fine.
Like obviously good health permitting, even even if his
stuff doesn't really bounce back.
I think Strider has a really long track record of being
really good. And the surgery he he had, it is
like pretty like it's pretty established like surgery.

(01:05:07):
So I don't think people should overreact.
I don't think we need 20 different explanations for like
what's going wrong with Strider or what was going wrong with
Aaron, Like what was wrong with Aaron Judge in April of last
year. I think, I think overall we can
just, I mean, I get that people need to try to explain things to
themselves, but I think I, I trust the projections usually.
Yes interesting it is one of it's one of the immutable laws

(01:05:28):
and find people find it so much so frustrating is that rest is
any decent. Recent rest of season
projections is more predictive of the rest of the year than
year to date statistics. The entire season like September
15th, you're still better off looking at rest of season
projections then year to date stats will do better on

(01:05:50):
aggregates projecting the rest of the year and that's just a
fact and people cannot wrap their minds around that.
That is just true and you can point out a few examples every
year of where it is not true. But you would expect that with
any, any projecting the weather,projecting anything, there's
gonna be 5% on either end of thecurve where anything is not

(01:06:12):
true. There are outliers by
definition, and people just willnot accept that that is true.
Yeah, but I forget it also because.
Always. Because we're humans.
Yeah, I have Ben Brown like in the line up getting rocked and I
have to, I have to, I have to look, I have to do this like
some tests as like a sanity check, like did guys that that
had huge discrepancies between their ERA and xfip, Do they tend

(01:06:36):
to improve or or not? And I mean they do, but but I
need to remind. I need to see it.
I need to remind myself. With pictures, I think I with
pictures, if your velocity is down like that, it may not be.
I know projection systems capture that relatively quickly.
But if you're not, if you normally, if you need to sit 95
to be successful in your last two starts you've been sitting
9293, then the projection is notthe best way to project what's

(01:07:00):
about to happen in the next start, I think.
That's Strider, right? I think 97 down the 95, that's a
big deal. I think I think to an extent
like the bigger stuff changes then I I am more like agnostic
about trusting the projections as much.
But I still think that projections account for that and
95 should be enough for strider.But.

(01:07:20):
But it but it but it might not. Should be when it's allowing an
18% barrel and a 7% swinger strike.
It doesn't seem like it is, but I guess that could change.
I think he's smart. He's smart.
He's just a rebrol. Like he's the obviously
physicality like he's, he's intoeverything.
You could see he's an athlete for sure.
I think it's also different whenJacob degrom is sitting with his

(01:07:41):
fastball right now where he was in 2018 and I can point to a
season where he was a sigh youngquality pitcher at this
velocity. So I'm like, I don't care that
he's down to miles an hour from his peak.
In fact, not again, not to go Doctor Dave.
I'm pretty good with it because I can point to where his stuff

(01:08:02):
at this exact level was wildly successful.
My concern with Strider and I agree, I think he's going to be
fine. I can't point to any time in the
majors where he's been successful at this velocity.
Doesn't mean he can't do it. It's that with his two pitch
pitch mix, it's like it's not obvious that he will.
So I'm a little bit more worriedthan you are, Jordan, about

(01:08:23):
Strider unless the stuff picks back up.
I think, I think an example where I'm more skeptical of the
projections which are, which arealready like not not amazing,
but they're maybe like SP30 and Oopsies is Woodruff because just
because the shoulder surgery is,is more unpredictable.
So it's almost like 2. I mean, he's not two different
dudes, like he's the same guy still.

(01:08:44):
But but but it does change. I feel like it impacts the stuff
a lot more that kind of routine and and the sort of recovery or
like return to play and return to the same form.
Like those sort of rates seem tobe lower for shoulder stuff.
So and his velocity seems down quite a bit, but he's still been

(01:09:06):
quite solid in in in AAA, So in his like 200 innings in AAA,
yeah. We're going to say you're going
to have a lot of data to really make a good projection with him.
It's like, Oh my God, it's unbelievable with him.
And I get it. But you know, the Quinn
priesthood have been holding it down and there is no rush.
But every time they say there's no rush, he gets hit by a
fucking pitch or something. It's you expect at any point

(01:09:29):
Milwaukee to announce. We're really sorry.
Woodruff has hit his innings pitch tap for the season.
We're shutting him down. Without a doubt.
I feel like it's coming too. And it's pretty wild.
Yeah. And pretty frustrating with
them. So you you're you're getting
into the possible weekly projection world.

(01:09:51):
Is is that something that we canexpect maybe next season from
Oopsie? Yeah.
So I I made some progress on it.The last I worked on it was on
my flight to Japan. I had AI had a lot, a lot of
time and I made some good progress, but I'm having a
little bit of motivation issues 'cause I already have the
pitching is like good enough. I'm using that in my decision
making each week, right. And hitting it.

(01:10:13):
I, I find, I mean, it's useful, but there are less hitting
decisions that I even have to make.
My hitting benches are short andhitting decisions I feel like
are much more playing time based.
So it's, it's less, I mean, RudyGamble's algorithm is good for
playing time, but it's also hardto beat.
Like for for me, I definitely look at Raz Ball each week

(01:10:34):
setting my hitting line UPS. But it's just looking at the fan
graphs like roster resource, lineup tracker and seeing the
recent trend and making sure my guys like going to get at least
two out of three or hopefully three out of three or three or
three or four games in each slate.
I feel like hitting is more qualitative in that way that you
want to focus on the playing time and make sure make sure you

(01:10:58):
guys are playing. And the pitching varies much
more based on match up. I think because like hitters are
facing 3-4 different pitchers a week.
So they're sort of they're sort of going to average out
somewhat. But the the pitching match up
and the pitching park, that kindof thing.
I feel like the pitching starts decisions, they're they're,

(01:11:18):
they're a lot tougher, I think. But why don't, why don't you
start selling your pitching weekly projections for, I don't
know, €2020.00 a month? You, you see you're, you're in
the euro or in Finland, right? Yeah, yeah, no finish Mark is no
longer yeah. But I, I, I do, I will sell them
at or we are going to sell them at some point.
But I think now that they're just the Rai don't really feel

(01:11:40):
comfortable so. No, no, we need strikeouts.
We need the whole, we need the whole line.
Yeah. So if I'm giving you €20 a a
month, I, I want the whole I. Wasn't going to charge, I was
going to charge 20 per season like Max.
So it's a bad negotiation. Dude like.
On my part. You don't need to go full party
in charge. 200 bucks €2020.00 ofFirst off you need to charge it

(01:12:00):
in euro. Forget the US dollars.
There needs to get currency arbitrage.
I won't pass. I won't pass along the tariffs
either. Nice and don't don't give them
away cheap. You're like the type of people
who are paying you for the weekly, for the weekly
projections are high stakes fantasy players.

(01:12:21):
Be greedy, Jordan. But but here's the thing, so I
don't right now I'm stuck between like I don't want, I'm
lazy, I don't want to do I don'twant to do the full spectrum
projections now, but I also don't want to.
So in that way, the happy mediumis to give them away free for
now. I get what I want.
I have my ERA projections. I can make my start sit
decisions. I just I just can't.
I just don't feel comfortable charging yet.

(01:12:43):
So you're, so you're. So you're like the the finished
crack dealer, you're going to give us a little baggie just to
get us get us hooked Bobby Brown, right.
And then and then once Whitney is hooked on the smack, then you
start charging for the for the full, the Full Monty.
Is that what you're saying? Is that how it goes in Finland?
Is that is that how you roll? I don't know if it's how, I

(01:13:05):
don't know if it's a general tendency for society to roll
this way, but I I do believe it is justified as a marketing
strategy as well. Yeah, it's not, not just not
just benevolence to give them for free, but but I, I just I,
I, I just don't. Have a 70% tax rate but but
there's socialized weekly baseball projections I'll.
Take. Yeah, I'll.
Take for all. I'll take the, I'll take the

(01:13:25):
trade off. Yeah, no, no, This is why this
is like you're a sociologist, you understand, this is you have
a better society and this is howthis is how you roll.
Yeah, No, no, no notes, No notes.
Do you have to play that your projection system still like or
you yourself still feel good about, even if they're kind of

(01:13:47):
underperforming what you thoughtthey were going to do coming
into the season? I mean, Luis Robert, I wrote
about him in yes and, and I findmyself checking him the most,
you know, go to Google. Google says you visit this
player page often. I'm like, does he still look OK
'cause he's, he's not been doingmuch.

(01:14:07):
I mean, he's still running so much that that like.
It's he's brought no dollars, Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, he's on pace for like, I don't know, some crazy
steals total, but but he's kind of testing my patience.
But his bat speed's the same as it's been his barrel rate's the
same as it's been his, his like walk, strikeouts minus walks or

(01:14:27):
like the reverse of that for hitters is the same as it's
been. So it really does seem like it's
just been bad luck. But I I would like to see him
get going. I mean, now he's had a couple
days off to get his mind, get his mind in order and spend time
with the Dolos Garcia. So I hope it gets him going.
But I'm confident in him. And basically, I mean for all

(01:14:49):
the guys, I, I, I do trust, I dotrust the projections on, on, on
them. It's wild that they they in that
lineup that he's like now batting 7th for the White Sox.
Like if I told you Luis Robert is hitting seventh for the White
Sox, man. It's a stacked, it's a stack
like I got Benintendi Chase Mydra.

(01:15:10):
It's it's. Only he could barrel up the ball
like Benintendi. Forget about.
It and and Vargas, Yeah. Like, it's, it's, it's there's a
lot to like going on on the in Chicago this summer.
Yeah, I'll take it. If he keeps playing, I'll take
it. I'm a little worried about this,
all these benchings now I understand it because he's not
getting any hits, but I would like him to start to get some

(01:15:30):
hits. Another guy is Royce Lewis, so
that that that quotes went viralthat he said everything is
hopeless. But if you actually look at the
full quote, it's much more. It was filled with optimism.
He says everything is hopeless. Like I'm hitting the ball hard.
It's just getting caught. It feels like wiffle ball.
It's staying in the air, but I'mhitting, I'm making good

(01:15:51):
contact, I'm hitting hard. And then I think he concludes
with some sort of notes of optimism.
And and since then there's been more recent positive commentary.
So I think Rice is also, there'snothing so alarming about, well,
if you look at like his best beat and and his strikeouts and
walks and stuff, there's nothingthat should should should

(01:16:12):
suggest that he should be all ofa sudden this bad.
His quote should have ended witheat Arby's was how I read the
quote. If you had to eat Arby's at the
end of the quote, then it felt perfect.
I mean, we all just saw what we wanted from the quote
ultimately. That's true.
It's, it's, it's an ink block, Which, to be fair, isn't that

(01:16:33):
sort of Royce Lewis in fantasy baseball too?
You see what you want to see with him.
I I think he's a good candidate for it.
Yeah, I mean, he's he's not pulling the balls much this
year, but also too like now, nowwe have to worry about him like
riding the pine a little bit, right.
I mean, he he he sat like 3-3 games in A7 game period or six

(01:16:57):
game period. And it's like we're going to get
Rocco Baldeli do with him a little bit too, which can be
annoying. But probably like you said, the
K rate looks great, like he's hitting the ball hard still.
It's just. I have a He doesn't have a track
record of getting cartoons. Right.
I know it is concerning. It is concerning, though.
And then on the pitching, on thepitching and me and Phil, you

(01:17:18):
saw what we're talking about. Ben Brown before the last start
or the last long, the bulk appearance.
And I thought I was being bold like, well, we both really like
him. Phil, Phil's like internal
numbers like him also 'cause he has, he has a really good
peripherals this year. And I thought I was being bold
saying how his projections were close to Imanaga for the rest of

(01:17:41):
the year in terms of like rate stats.
But Phil said he's, he hasn't like way as way better than
Imanaga. And then I went to see Mission
Impossible, but I was too nervous to check the Ben Brown
box score. So I I made Phil tell me what
had happened in the Ben Brown game.
And I thank God he was he was fine or he was, he was excellent
that game. But so.

(01:18:01):
Sorry you you were too scared tocheck the box score, but not
scared enough that you wouldn't let Phil tell you what happened.
Walk me through the logic. I don't know.
I don't. I mean, I just told you.
I just told you the facts. I don't know what sort of
unconscious. What the mental Speaking of ink
blocks? Why?
Why, Yeah. I don't know why I.
Preferred was Phil gonna say he gave up eight runs, but he

(01:18:22):
looked really good giving up theeight runs if it was bad.
Yeah, I do think about if I asked Phil and he was bad, I
don't know if Phil would have even responded.
He probably would have been likepretty annoyed.
Yep. And it would have been rude of
me to like put that on him that he'd have to give me this news,
right? But he was fine.
So, and I think this start, I can't, I can't be asking Phil

(01:18:44):
every time. I need to be brave and check the
box for it myself. You're you're a big, you're a
big boy now, Jordan. You can check your own box
first. I won't ask him this.
Yeah, I won't put that on him this time.
I can't put that on someone else.
I guess we're brown. He just gets like the whiff
stuff is fantastic, but when he gets hit, he just gets blasted,
you know, like it's just doesn'thave a good ability to suppress

(01:19:05):
damage on those batted balls. And that that just don't know
how stable that is and when thatwill kind of, you know, like get
better if he can. But I mean, you know, he's
giving up what, almost a 10% bowel rate.
I know that doesn't sound like alot, but I guess it hurts him,
you know? I don't know.

(01:19:25):
Yeah, I think, I think in terms of talent, I mean all the
projection systems like him, they were similar in terms of
like the rest of season eras. But he doesn't have much leash
now he needs to be good or else he's going to get demoted.
So forget about like the bapiv and stuff.
Like I basically think we can ignore that in terms of what it
actually means about him, but itdoesn't matter what it actually
means because right now, if he doesn't have the if he's not

(01:19:49):
good, his next two starts when IMA not a comes back or he's,
he'll probably find himself out of the rotation.
So he needs he needs the luck. He needs to keep doing his
doing, preferably speaking, but also he needs a little bit of
luck. Yeah, I think, I think he's
added the rotation regardless ofhow he does now if he starts.
Yeah, I I Council before the last start gave really strong

(01:20:12):
words in support and Colin and Ray I think could easily be out
of the rotation. 1st 100%. Yeah, I think Colin Ray's been.
Colin Ray's been very good. Also, Most managers don't before
they have to, they know their pitchers have to throw three
more starts, say yeah, he's fucked, he's shit, he's going to
be down. No, I mean, he's worried.

(01:20:33):
I think you're right to be. We need to worry about it.
Certainly he could be out of therotation, but Horton also could
go back down. His peripherals have not been
great. Lots and lots.
Lots of options there, but. Could go, yeah, Ray could go
back too. So I think if he's good.
I'm a bigger Dick than Craig counsel when it comes to Chicago
Cubs is what I'm saying. I wouldn't take that comment
literally. The Pope would be proud of you.

(01:20:56):
Yes, Pope's a White Sox fan, man.
No, I know. That's why.
He he obviously didn't. The Pope obviously didn't draft
Luis Robert on his fantasy team this year.
I'm. Pretty sure he's a member.
I've seen him in lurking in the Patreon, in the screen pillow.
Oh geez. In the discord.
Sorry in the discord. God man, that that one stuck by

(01:21:18):
me. You you.
I should just make you my like, daily recap, daily Discord
recapper. He got all the goods, he's
supposed. To be sequestered and he's
posting about complaining. About but.
He did Robert, he was supposed to be sequestered and he's
complaining about Luis, Robert and the discord.
That's why rat him out. My my favorite thing about Oh

(01:21:42):
bear was when they were like they asked him about like, you
know, trade, you know, getting traded out and he goes, I don't
think anyone would want me now. I'm not doing anything.
I'm like, Jesus Christ, dude. I didn't love that.
I didn't love that either. I saw.
That oh shit like I. Respect the shit out.
I respect the shit out of the honesty.
Yeah, me too. Yeah, without a doubt, that's
for sure. But like, where is your head?

(01:22:03):
Oh God, man, did you have anyonelike I sometimes just like to
look at, you know, just talking about PCA last weekend in my hot
corner, just talking about taking like his current numbers
and taking the rest of the season and like, holy shit, like
he's on pace for a 30-40 If we follow this right.
It's like, do you have anyone that that kind of you've merged
the two and been like, whoa, this is a season unlike maybe we

(01:22:26):
we've come to expect from this guy.
I I don't, I don't really do, I don't really even know where I
would do that. Like where?
OK, is there an easy way to merge the stats?
No, no, no. It's no easy the way to merge.
I just go to a page and I was like I said, yeah, I think.
More has a Seymour has a featureyou can do current stats plus
rest of season stats for full year stats is one of the options

(01:22:49):
on. I didn't, I didn't know that.
Yeah, maybe now I'll do it then,but I haven't really done it too
much. But I was I was pleased to see
PCAI think has moved into the top 30 and oopsie now wow, top
30 oopsie hitters. I that's pretty incredible.
I I posted the other day, I don't think people appreciate
Junior Caminero for a 21 year old is on pace to have like a

(01:23:13):
historically great season. There just aren't a lot of
hitters and almost every hitter who is gone kind of 308090 with
them. Whatever oops.
He has I think for for a 27280 batting average are hall of
Famers or are gonna be Hall of Famers.
So like he's having a ridiculousgood season.
The other guy on your Mets is for all the shit like one Soto,

(01:23:38):
if you take his actual projections and rest the season
projections is other than last year, basically having Juan Soto
season like the batting average isn't where it is, but that's so
noisy like Juan Soto is, is having a just fine season.
The other guy I posted the otherday that I just don't think
people appreciate how good he's being because I think everybody

(01:24:02):
was fading him this year was Trey Turner.
Like Trey Turner right now is a top 15 fantasy hitter and it's
like he's not gonna steal 60 bases anymore.
He's not the crazy stolen base guy.
But if you just want a guy who'sfilling up the the stat line,
buy low on Trey Turner in your trade league guys.
Somebody's. Selling so I I just acquired a

(01:24:23):
Turner in in a dynasty in the Highlander dynasty league.
Like with the other like writers, I traded with Smata for
sale for Turner. What do you?
Say, oh, that's, that's interesting.
That's. Nice.
I like that. And it's not like, yeah.
It was a tough one, but I I figured in dynasty I can get a
little younger maybe maybe this year it's kind of balanced, but

(01:24:43):
I can get a little younger in. The long, yeah.
I mean, the only thing with TreyTurner, it doesn't really
matter. He's not going to play shortstop
for much longer. So like position wise, at some
point in a dynasty league, he'lllose shortstop eligibility.
But who gives a shit? There's like the shortstop isn't
weak anymore. So like, that's not really,
that's not really a thing. It's a real baseball thing.
His value will go down when he moves to whatever other

(01:25:04):
position, but in a fantasy league, if he's a second baseman
or he's a left fielder, I don't really care.
Yeah, right. Entry turn did not known to
really lay down the last week ofthe season and not pitch for the
team when the seasons on the line so.
Just wow. Wow, Yeah, wow.
Crystal one thing was soda, though.
It's like, yeah, I'm watching a lot of the guy now and I watched

(01:25:25):
a decent amount with him at the Yankees last year.
Just two things that are just like the pull percentage is
down, but it's also like where it's been the rest of his
career. Last year was just so different.
I think he intentionally was looking at that porch.
And but the the other thing I know the bats be down like 2
miles an hour, but it's the in between that I've never seen
before. Like there's, there's some

(01:25:46):
swing, there's like indecision and he does this little like
bumped, like swing bumped and and I'm like, what is that?
You know, like even Keith Hernandez, like what is he
doing? Like he's in between too much.
And last night we saw, I think alittle bit of a turning point
from him. He did a little bit of shuffling
and he did, he actually moonwalkto first base about halfway

(01:26:07):
after a walk. So I'm like, OK, he he's
starting to feel it again. And it's so funny because like,
I used to hate it. I used to hate the shuffling
when I watched them on the Nats,but now I'm just like, where is
it? Because it's got to be part of
your fabric. It's that part of you, you know?
And if that is part of you, bring it back.
But yeah, I don't think, I don'tthink we'll have any any
problems with soda going forward.

(01:26:28):
I'm pretty excited. There were just a lot of New
York folks, as you know, Rob, who were like, can they cut Juan
Soto? Do they regret the signing of
Juan Soto? I was like.
Yeah, I can't wait to retweet all the fucking Baseball
Reference comparison WRC plus toTrent Christian at the end of

(01:26:48):
the year. I can't wait to shove that down
everyone's throat when it's over.
But I'm saving those bookmarks. I'm not like Zach Style and
they're going to bookmark all ofthem, but just a couple for sure
that I'm I'm really, really amped up to show.
But real quick, Jordan, are you going to try to merge any of
these new batch stuff? Not now, but like at the end of

(01:27:10):
the season? I'm sure right now it's too much
of an overtake to just even understand what they all mean.
But because some of them I thinkwill might parlay into like,
like sweet spot, like might be something that is from attack
angle, right? Like if you're swinging this
way, your launch angle's becoming this way.
And but after real quick, Rob, you mentioned Junior Caminero.
I just wanted to throw this out real quick.

(01:27:31):
But I was listening to rates andbarrels and Jed Lowry said that
Chase major off has a higher floor than Junior Caminero
because his back path is better.So I just wanted to throw that
out there. And then when you broke up those
historical numbers, Junior Cameron arrows on pace for it
was literally the same time as Iwas on the walk with my dog and
hearing it. And I'm like, yeah, I don't

(01:27:51):
know. These are two different.
These are two different. I like I love chase mate mate
Droth but junior Kevin Arrow is like, I don't think basically
Vlad Guerrero junior and chase Madrop is like Dustin Pedroia.
Yeah, two different employees, 100%.
But yeah, Jordan, have you triedto understand any of these new
metrics yet, if you dove into them at all?

(01:28:13):
Yeah, a little bit. And I think I won't add anything
in the in the short term, but but yeah, maybe next year, but I
may like do an article on it. So, yeah.
And Mike Petrello had a good intro article he did on on it.
And, and a common theme throughout the article is that
these metrics aren't really supposed to help improve

(01:28:34):
projections basically because like a common theme was that
like, it's not a question of like more.
Yeah, it's not a question of like more or less in, in most
cases there. There's not like better or
worse. It's more, it seemed like for
the perspective of like coachingand making tweaks and things
like that. But the one, the one measure
that was clearly like it's, it'sbetter to be better at this than

(01:28:56):
to be worse at this because I think the ideal, ideal attack
angle. And you can see that just from
the Savant page, that that's theonly measure that actually has
like the conditional formatting with the red and the blue,
right. So, right.
So that's the one I immediately wanted to focus on.
They have like the percentage ofballs between 5 and 20°.

(01:29:18):
But I think when I was looking at the data, I think that makes
sense. But if you get around like 15
degrees, 14 to 17°, that's whereyou really get the outcome.
And I, yeah, like you said, I think it's a measure of timing.
And 14 to 17° seem to be where if you look at all the batted
balls in in in the majors this year or in the last two years,

(01:29:42):
14 to 17° where you get the bestoutcomes.
But isn't that? But isn't that the 5 to 20°?
Isn't that the degree of the swing?
Not the bad at ball, right? It's the I don't do good with
the definitions of these things,but it's.
OK, I'm that's what. I'm gonna It's the vertical
angle at which the sweet spot istraveling at the point of

(01:30:05):
impact. So it's not the, it's not the
degree of the ball ends up, it'sjust, it's just the, the the bat
on contact, right? Yeah, it's a.
Specific part A specific part ofthe bat.
Yeah, I'm happy with that, But Idon't actually care what it
means. If it helps the projections,
then 100% that's fine. And it seemed like that the I, I

(01:30:26):
linked, I looked at that and linked that to outcomes.
And it seemed like, like focusing on the 14 to 17° mark
is one thing you can do or what I, what I kind of like even more
instead of, since it seems like the closer to 15, the better the
outcomes are. So you can, you can convert like

(01:30:46):
average average ideal attack or average attack angle.
You can convert it to like absolute value.
So like 15 minus average attack angle.
So that way the closer to the ideal attack angle you are 15°,
the the better you are basicallyand and it and this is all as a

(01:31:08):
measure of timing I think, right.
So it is that seemed interestingto me and maybe, maybe I would
write more about that and try toshow make that case in like an
article form. It's pretty.
It's pretty wild. I'm not shitting on Vlad Junior
but it's pretty crazy how he hasthe lowest attack angle of
anyone in baseball like it's. So that's what I didn't like
about it. That almost made me.
Right. No, that's almost like, yeah, I

(01:31:32):
know because it's like it just doesn't seem he like you see
Jacob Williamson, Jacob Wilson, Ben Williamson, Xavier Edwards,
Joey Ortiz, and you're like, Vlad doesn't belong here with
these guys. But that's just how hard he hits
the ball in general. And just one swing that just not
that, you know, not that off. He's he's he's he's cracking it,
which is just pretty. It's pretty wild.
But Matt Chapman's really low and so is Bobby Witt got the the

(01:31:55):
10th lowest attack. I go on this list anyway.
But yeah, it's it's all it all seemed interesting.
I just wish we had like a nice offseason to dive into it.
Not like in the middle of the season.
It's but I've been trying to peek at it for certain things,
you know, just and I've heard, you know, and talk about it a
lot with several different guests and like really it's just
a piece. They're all pieces of the puzzle

(01:32:16):
of the swing. And it's just like you said,
Jordan, it's like much of them is not like more means less or
less means more. It's just a, you know, they
piece together somehow and the swing, it's just cool.
It's just kind of like we'll be able to see it in person.
But Rob, you have anything else for Jordan before we get out of
here? No, go play, Go play with your

(01:32:39):
Nokia phone. That I'm really is there a lot
of jealousy in Finland about IKEA, like like that the Swede's
got IKEA and you got Nokia. Is that like?
Is that like? Is that a source of tension?
Not specifically that, but jealousy towards the Swede,
certainly. Certainly what's Can you give us

(01:32:59):
a quick what is your go to pickled herring recipe?
I, I, I don't, I don't fuck with, with, it's actually a
little hard for me because I, I don't really eat fish.
I just because I'm like a child in that way.
OK, so I I don't I don't fuck with the pickled head.
What is? If if.
If I were in Finland tomorrow, what's the one food that I

(01:33:22):
should try? IA reindeer is.
Reindeer is a common one. Reindeer is.
Pretty good love. Love me some reindeer.
You've have you had it before. No, but I, I bet.
I bet I would lie. I, I, I, I, I I'm the opposite
of Rob. I like all meats.
There is no meat that I don't eat.
The one, the one thing, the one thing that they don't have as
much of is is frozen yogurt, which I, which I miss.

(01:33:44):
I'm very proud of my I'm very proud of American culture in
terms of the frozen yogurt scenein America, which is second,
second to none, although I hear the trend is is dying a little
bit. Yeah, for some reason that does.
The Hegemony isn't entirely dependent on frozen yogurts.
I thought it was a key resource,the the so-called red spice of a

(01:34:06):
Rakis for America, for America. So, so rain gears, Yeah.
Is if if you were going to eat 11 of Santa's reindeers, which
one do you think would be the taste?
Yes. I don't.
I have to go through this song. I don't want to.
I don't want to eat the reindeer.
I'll just, I'll just starve. I don't know anyone but Rudolph.

(01:34:28):
I've never, I've never Rudolph. Yeah, I I shouldn't choose him.
And on that note. I'm trying.
And we're done. OK, Yeah, yeah, unless you want
to answer Phil's question real quick about oh.
Yeah, we could. Yeah, we could go.
I think the questions quickly. I think we're.

(01:34:48):
We're yeah, OK, questions correctly Phil Phil wants to
know how you manage your team with the time difference it's.
A great question. So the main difference is mostly
the same but but I can't really watch many games, not that I
would even because it it's too stressful for me.
So the main thing is, is, is I'mlike powering my phone off when,
when all the games are starting around 7 A 7:00 PM Eastern and

(01:35:13):
basically never watching, but I watch highlights and stuff.
And then for FAB, it's a little tricky because I'll have my fab
in three hours before lock. So I may occasionally just miss
some miss some news there. There's a little bit of a cost
there, but it's not that most news like I, I get every game
except the late game. Like I I check before I stay up
a little later on Sunday, not coincidentally, and I have all

(01:35:36):
that data so I I could miss a few headlines but usually don't
get screwed in that way. I think it's.
Otherwise it's pretty similar. Yeah, saves you. $40 from
picking up Ronnie Enriquez. Exactly.
Oh. Yeah, no, it it.
I miss Romano. I miss Jordan Romano.
Like he got a late night save. Ronnie Henriquez.
I miss that stuff too. Romano actually.

(01:35:57):
I don't generally have many Co managers but that team with
Dylan and Brian, they added Romano so they were on in that
way. It worked out quite well but I
could get a little screwed. I've tried.
My dad has access to the team soI tried to train him a little
bit and he's learned to set the DFS lineup so he knows Red X
means get him out of there. But I haven't trained him for

(01:36:19):
the the redraft stuff yet. That's all.
Your dad's great. It was a pleasure meeting him in
Vegas. The MLB, the MLB app when you're
in Europe is baffling in terms of the using the European times
for when games are starting and moving games to like the next
day like that that like a Sundaygame Sunday late game is

(01:36:41):
starting on month. Like if if that fucked me up
trying to keep track of like when is this game actually
happening? It's very confusing, but, and,
and now I think they might have improved it a little bit in that
way that the games are all organized by American start
times. So it's a little more, it's a
little easy to follow, but now they show the games that are

(01:37:01):
done at the bottom, but then thenext day they move they they
they rank them from like earliest to latest.
So yes. It changes the next day.
It's. When afternoon games start
happening and last night's gamesare still there, it's anyways
like my my North American brain.It was.
It was, it was. I needed some frozen yogurt to
calm the nerves at that point. Failure.

(01:37:23):
All right, one more. What are the optimal uses Jordan
and how to use them Professor season productions.
I mean, for me, I, I don't know what like as an alternative to
preseason projections, they're just like more accurate than
like I think users would hate season projections now that
don't account for anything that's happened this year.

(01:37:45):
And then the I don't know what the other alternatives even are
to using rest of season projections like using whims
and, and just using the 2025 stats or something.
I basically for me there's no alternative except to use
recipes and projections. I think I think that.
Calculator right but not like SGP or?

(01:38:06):
Something I use auction calculator.
I don't have a problem with SGP,but auction calculator is I'm
more familiar. I know how to do that myself
more easily. It's often hard to find previous
standings to even get the SGPS and the fan grass action
calculator is pretty good. Like so I don't have to do it
myself. I think, I think rest of season
projections can be very useful when you pick up a bat, you pick

(01:38:29):
up Drew Waters for a weekly stream because you have him.
He likes Rob says great schedulethis week and then the next.
But he and he's doing pretty well and he's hitting and he's
playing most days. It's a rest of season
projections can be a good reality check of is he a guy I
want to keep on my bench? Like even though next week his

(01:38:50):
schedule is not as good versus this alternative.
And I think that it, it's it, it's that's another way of
saying is this guy above or below replacement value?
Is there a guy I can get cheap who is a better last bat on my
team for not just for the next like 7 days, but to hold for a
while than the alternative? And I think as opposed to just

(01:39:12):
using gut or looking at how theyhave done so far this season, I
think it's very useful to whether you run SGP or use
auction calculator, it's the same.
It's the same difference of use a steamer, use oopsie, use
something of like should this guy be on my team or not.
Right, Yep, makes a whole bunch of sense.

(01:39:32):
I I think that's where I think you just nailed that with like a
true waters thing, because then it's like a the next true waters
with the next good schedule and you're like, OK, which guy would
I rather have? And I think that's where it
definitely, definitely helps with me for sure.
Jordan, we appreciate your time,buddy.
And like Rob said before, your complete transparency and your,
your, your motivation to, you know, be so good at this.

(01:39:57):
And I think it's, you know, one of the, you know, I, I know like
a lot of people were just a little hesitant and using your
projection system this year because, you know, they didn't
really see it before and they don't know how it test blah,
blah, blah. But like, I felt like I had no
problem doing it because I just know how much work you put into
it and not. And like, just by able, like
being able to talk to you. I know a lot of people don't
have direct access to you, but just knowing what you were

(01:40:19):
putting into it, being transparent with us, either in
the discord or conversations we had in previous pods, like made
me feel comfortable knowing thatyou weren't going to like,
you're not dropping the ball on this.
You're not half assing it. You're complete like, you know,
so obsessed with it. And I just like that's a reason
for me 100% to like feel confident in it.
And if, if you know, if I have abad season, whatever, you know,

(01:40:41):
then then I'll see how I feel about it.
Now I'm just joking. Should I have drafted Giancarlo
Stanton in the sixth round? Everywhere in the hindsight it
was. That's on.
That's on me for drafting Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth
round on all my teams. Yeah, Giancarlo, your your first
hitter, and Mccullar is leading.The leading?

(01:41:01):
Exactly. Yeah, cancels each other out.
Cancels each other out. It makes it makes me feel better
about spending so much time on this to get like good feedback.
So I. Appreciate it.
That's awesome and you've been agreat guest.
Really appreciate your time. Enjoy the sauna.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Listen to Launch Angle. We'll catch you soon.
All right. Bye.
Thank you both for UPS.

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EP 213 | Talkin' OOPSY w/ Jordan Rosenblum

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EP 213 | Talkin' OOPSY w/ Jordan Rosenblum